you've a lazy laugh and a red white shirt
by flesh and bone telephone
Summary: "Is this a past time of yours," she hisses, so brilliant in her fury. "Hunting down your brother's women?" — Caroline, Elijah, and a whole lot of running.


**disclaimer:** i don't own tvd.  
**dedication:** to hannah, to malia, to caitlan and everyone who ever even bothered with my shit. thanks, i appreciate it!  
**warning:** un-betad. multi-chapter fic with slow or infrequent updates, so motivate me if you like. also, written between the start of episode 19 season 4 to the end of episode 20. let's just not talk about the originals pilot, tho. a lot of mixed feelings about that one. i mostly just went immediately to the fabulous 'mardi gras' fic by lenina and reread it over and over till my eyes stopped bleeding. it's beautiful, because we could have had it all rolling in the deep but the tvd writers don't have lenina on their team so i'm deeply mournful but what can ya do?  
**notes:** tenatively calijah, but maybe not if it isn't building up as well as i would like it to in this story  
**even moar notes:** i am aware of the state of my multi-chapter problems, i have too many projects of the kind going on, so hey, let's make it better with yet ANOTHER multi-chapter fic. i apologize dudes, my muse is all over the place. this is open fic-ing, as in, i have NO idea where it's going. i take most of my cues from you people though, so you tell me what you think and i'll show you what i can do about it. m'kay?

* * *

_._

.

_Did I see you in a limousine, flinging out the fish and the unleavened. Five thousand users fed today  
As you feed us, won't you lead us to be blessed?  
So we stole and drank Champagne. On the seventh seal you said you never feel pain  
"I never feel pain, won't you hit me again? I need a bit of black and blue to be a rotation"  
In my blood I feel the bubbles burst,  
there was a flash of fist, an eyebrow burst. You've a lazy laugh and a red white shirt  
I fell to the floor fainting at the sight of blood_

_._

_._

_._

* * *

Caroline gets it, she _really_ does. Turning off your emotions because it seems like the only solution when you hurt too much over caring, she could have done it several times; during the ebbs and blur of the dark tide when she fell in and out of conscience as everyone and their mothers slicked her in vervain and shot wooden bullets into her chest, splinters just itching around her heart - the appeal of just turning it all off seemed great, blinking in the back of her vision, like a man watching her as she slept, so close, so dangerous, she could taste it. Caroline didn't touch the switch, not when her dad tortured her, not when he died, and not when Tyler left.

These were all experiences that were traumatic, but she couldn't, it would have felt like a betrayal to herself, to Stefan too. He'd regaled her about the sanctity of human feeling enough times for Caroline to understand that she couldn't just give up and turn it off.

Damon's the big daddy of bad ideas so he turns Elena's switch off for her with his fucking sire bond. She doesn't see how this is different from compulsion, like all those times he told her _you're not allowed to scream_. Can't you be thankful _I got you cashmere_ - it's expensive. _It matches your eyes -_

Caroline thinks she might kill him, one of these days. Anger is so exhausting though, and she hasn't the leisure of time to ruminate on it too much - to actually give force to the emotion, to allow her to act on it.

Elena, though, is somehow beyond reproach for acting like a total and utter bitch recently; she's not particularly clever either, NoEmotion!Elena is an arrogant pain in the ass who wouldn't know subtlety if it kicked her in the head. She's brutally direct and entirely reckless, Caroline doesn't know if she can find her best friend under this brainless facade, Caroline was willing to try initially but after a few too near brushes with death and the threats to the safety of her single-living parent? Caroline has just about had it with playing it safe.

Caroline has had it with trying to save Elena, because she's failing to make any headway anyway, and so are the Salvatores. Caroline would really love to be charitable and naïve enough to continue having her whole world revolve around Elena's life and easing her suffering - because she is, she's sorry about Jeremy, loosing people sucks and Caroline gets it - but Caroline has other people to think about, to take care of. Caroline needs to keep them safe.

She doesn't want to stay in Mystic Falls for the rest of her life, and her mom definitely won't consider leaving their hometown, she has a duty to it that Caroline doesn't necessarily feel obliged to think the same way.

"Whose going to look after the interests of the good human people if I leave?" Bonnie had muttered, crossly tossing the college pamphlets into the garbage bin as they left the Grille. She'd already decided her future lay in one place and one place only, the same way it had been for Grams. Matt had given the Bennet witch a hug over the bartopp when they'd asked him to make their twosome a threesome, he'd still been a little freaked from her crazy-juju eyes the night she'd come back from the island, but he was more worried for her than anything. Bonnie had stiffened for like, a second before surging back and clinging onto him like he was life itself. Caroline had swallowed down a surge of emotions, it had been a crazy few days, and she was glad to have her friends; they all needed each other to get through this."I'll stay here, and I won't leave until everything wrong and horrible in this place is destroyed. And even when I do manage that I'll be moving up to the next town to do the same, what happened to you Caroline, what happened to us…I can't allow it to happen again to other people."

Caroline had smiled warmly at her, trying to ease off the tension of Bonnie's cold, almost brutal determination to cleanse the world of evil, but deeply touched that Bonnie even cared. "Intense. You've got the juice for that?"

"Sometimes I feel like," the Bennet witch said, sounding far-away, "that...that that's the only thing I can use my magic for. It's the right way. That that's my purpose, that's why I've gone through everything with the Salvatores and the Originals and now with Silas…It's all so I could get to this point, and now I know that that's why I'm here."

"All work and no play makes Bonnie a dull girl."

"Don't be morbid," Bonnie grinned, realizing she'd been sounding a little spaced-out, then shrugging as Caroline unlocked her car. "I can be vigilant and still have fun. That's the whole point of the next few days, right? Prepping for prom and getting my ass into gear."

"Yeah," They slid unhurriedly into the vehicle, "Lets go dress shopping tomorrow, okay? We'll dress up nice and go to our last prom and have fun."

Bonnie nodded, forcing enthusiasm despite how crappy she must have been feeling. Caroline had always admired her best-friend's soldiering force of will, Bonnie had stood like a fortress, reliable, unshakeable; but that illusion had been shattered when Silas had manipulated her, it showed that Bonnie could be terribly vulnerable, just like the rest of them. Caroline hated Silas just for that.

The drive back to Bonnie's house was quiet, the Bennet witch studied the view outside the window, fiddling with a lock of hair. Fiddling was something Caroline hadn't seen Bonnie do since the last two years, it was so trivial a tick for someone like her to have, it made Caroline curious, Bonnie had gone through so much in such a short span of time…

She reached over and turned the knob on the radio, lowering the volume of the indie-pop song that had been blaring comfortably in their little pocket of silence. Bonnie reclined back again, and Caroline felt acutely the weighty study of those muddy green eyes.

"Something on your mind?" Caroline asked, smiling tightly.

"Something on yours?" Bonnie parried calmly, and Caroline tightened her hands around the wheel despite herself. "You can tell me."

"Yeah, I could, but how do I know you're not Silas?"

"You know." Bonnie said simply, not even bothering to take offense, or get distracted by anger the way Caroline's words obviously want to direct her into being. "You took pains to know when you took me along to see Matt, Silas can't manipulate more than one mind at once, and if Matt could see me then you knew I was real. You know it's me. You didn't have to take me along, but you did."

"I took you along because you needed to get out of that house."

"I know, but it's possible that wasn't your only goal."

"Bonnie, you're over-analyzing things." Caroline said, she pulled into the Bennet driveway, her palms felt clammy when she let go of the wheel, but she didn't have it in her to make open, honest eye contact with her friend.

"I think you want to tell me something, Caroline. You're just not sure how to."

Caroline's lips thinned, she closed her eyes, resolutely holding her silence. She expected Bonnie to loose patience with her, to walk out, maybe threaten her, but the warm touch of her hand on her shoulder jarred her into reality. Blue looked sharply into green. What was she thinking, she knew she could trust Bonnie, she just couldn't be sure it was her - she couldn't afford to make a mistake, not with something as important as this. Bonnie squeezed her friend's shoulder, her steely coolness slipping away, crumbling as she smiled imploringly, her eyes were worried. Not cat-clever and mute with secrets the way they always were these days, but open and asking and promising trust.

"Tell me," Bonnie said, slipping her palm into Caroline's. Worried by her friend's grimace, "I won't judge, I know you're afraid of that - I don't want you getting into anything dangerous. Everything's weird right now, I know, but you can tell me anything. I'll help you. Okay?"

"Okay," Caroline held the hand, clinging. "Okay."

* * *

Damon is careless; an utter idiot who hid the moonstone in a bowl of assorted soaps in the bathroom of the Salvatore boarding house. If that doesn't spell _fucking retarded_ then Caroline doesn't know what does. That hiding in plain sight gimmick only works in movies.

Damon hasn't learnt from his mistakes. Caroline figures as much when she finds the Gilbert ring taped carelessly to the back of his sock drawer. It's a wonder Caroline even gets shit done in between being beset with Klaus's aggressive flirting and Prom Committee, but it's perfect timing, sensible considering the two Salvatores are tag-teaming the ElenaRehabilitationProcess in New York.

She loves her best friend and all, but Stefan really needs to get a hold of his own life. And, she realizes, so does she.

It's after Stefan's gone and after she thinks Klaus has agreed to being left in the friend zone that Caroline's lying on her bed, exhausted, a pounding migraine pressing behind her eyes when it truly hits her.

She needs to get out of here.

No shit, really. She's always thought about it in leisure, but never seriously. Now, she considers it, what's there to stay here for? Tyler's not here, she just killed twelve people for Bonnie (needless to say she'd do it again if she had to, but still, that sucked), her mom is working herself crazy at her demanding police job cleaning after Elena's mess with the Gilbert house burning down (and okay, she's not trying to be a bitch or anything, but her mom didn't become sheriff so she could be have all the burdens of keeping Mystic Fall's worst kept secret ever), she can't really do anything for Elena because her best friend probably needs Jesus or something equally earth-shifting to save her, Matt's going to graduate and leave soon – and she too, happens to have plans that include college, she isn't really planning on sticking around really, she realizes. There's nothing to stick around for anymore, she's served whatever meager purposes she can and _she's tired_. What's it all for, she wonders, _what does it matter anymore?_

Her mom, and Matt, and Bonnie; Caroline doesn't leave. It feels a little too like chickening out too early into the shitstorm, but she makes preparations, she makes a back-up plan of sorts. She sneaks into the boarding house trying not to feel guilty and then stops feeling guilty immediately after she rifles through Damon's wardrobe and sees the old rack of scarves – _blue does suit your eyes_, the anger wraps around her throat so hard she can feel it clouding the back of her eyes in a furious choke – Caroline resists tearing the rack down, why does he even still have it anymore? She thinks of Elena and the ribbon she stole, and how easily she…well, Caroline knows, Damon was her maker, Elena had on some subconscious level (not intentional, it's uncharitable to think so, she can't have pulled that on purpose. Even though switched-off-Elena unusually did have it out for Caroline) picked up his nastiest maneuver.

She moves carefully through the room, makes sure to put everything back the way it was. (Please, she's ransacked the big daddy of secret artifact's house and found, like, the most important sword ever with no sweat. Klaus is a good hider, he's a thousand years old, she tells herself, if she can find his oh-so-secret sword in the clusterfuck of a secret museum his house is, she sure as hell can find Damon's hidden shit). She finds a few treasures, like the 1934 bourbon beneath a floorboard, almost cries to leave it untouched – because oh, messing with Damon's stuff is sweet heaven, and it's the least she can do to get back at him – and some skank underwear in a box behind the fridge with a note signed by Alfred Hitchcock, chatting about broads and gin and other obnoxiously manly things like that, which Caroline almost investigates because the idea of Damon having friends is ridiculous, and oddly infuriating; the bastard didn't _deserve_ friends. Look at Alaric, he'd had his neck snapped every time Damon had been feeling particularly bromantic.

Caroline gets the jackpot with the sock drawer, and she'd almost pity witty Damon and his oh-so-sardonic retorts if she didn't fucking hate his guts. All that high-wit didn't mean a thing when it came to hiding the important stuff. The Gilbert-ring, to Caroline, might be the ultimate game changer.

At first she thinks it's something stupid, because it's a ring-sized box. Something sentimental, she opens it expecting to find a lock of Katherine's hair because Damon is a creep who had, after all, been in love with her for only like a hundred years of his pathetic undead life. Caroline expects even some stray memorabilia or some stocked vervain or something – she's had way too high an opinion of Damon's intelligence when she finds it's _the_ Gilbert ring.

Caroline snaps out the ring, not believing her luck. Her odds at anything have been utter shit recently. Caroline counts her blessings and cleverly finds a piece of pebble in the Salvatore driveway that she carves the hunter's mark on by referring to the picture she took on her phone ages ago. She carves as best as she can with one of the biros she finds on Stefan's writing-desk of vampire-journal-angst, pops the rock into the box and tapes it neatly to the back of the sock drawer again.

That way, if Damon ever comes back and gets sober enough to rifle through his things and thinks about looking at the ring and then finds it gone, well at least the pebble with the hunter's mark will throw him off. Or something. She's pretty certain he won't suspect a thing.

Caroline pockets the ring, remembering poor Jer, he was only a _kid._

She's kind of furious Damon just kept it, when he could have given it to Matt or something.

Caroline doesn't give it to Matt. She should, but she doesn't. She keeps it.

That should make her feel like a horrible person, but she just killed twelve witches and she's a bit too deep into the game to throw out her only winning card. (If it can be called that). If she gives it to Matt it will be suspicious as fuck, because obviously Damon will see it and _know._

Caroline isn't stupid. She keeps the ring on her at all times, out of sight. She sews the ring into the hem of her dresses, or shirts, she's Miss Mystic Falls; an angel in the kitchen, a devil in the sheets yadayadayada, the all American-girl qualities she picked up as she grew up in a life of trying to be better than Elena meant she actually knew how to cross-stitch. Soon after she had turned vamp and gone through some deep self-evaluation Caroline realized she'd been stupid to learn something so trivial, the 50's were over, no one gave a shit if you were the perfect housewife. But now, _surprise_! The skill actually serves her, and it's a bit of a silly thing to be proud of, but she is. Small victories.

They've been few and far between, so Caroline makes sure to really remember the simple joy of having this one.

* * *

She doesn't pick up a dress for prom, not the dress she _wanted_. Klaus is utterly creepy, and the small parts of him that reveal themselves as charming aren't enough to swallow up the bits of him that are a hundred percent pure ruthless_ evil_. Most of the time, anyway.

He can be cute and endearing when he smiles though, and she can't deny that it's empowering to have the most powerful creature 'wrapped around her little finger'.

Stefan asks her about Klaus later, Caroline does not mention Elijah.

* * *

Elijah catches her at the doorway, stopping to greet her as courtesy demands. He remembers her as the golden haired baby vampire, the Sherrif's daughter, _Forbes_. She stops like a deer in the headlights really, and Elijah gives her an acknowledging nod, mildly curious. The baby vampire looks so unsettled Elijah makes an effort not to frighten her away.

"Miss Caroline Forbes, good evening," He says. Caroline shifts a little, jerking the fabric rolled between her folded arms. Elijah realizes it's a dress, white and dazzling; he thinks he's seen it somewhere.

Caroline's fear and wariness is palpable only to one who looks closely, it could be missed if Elijah was not so astute; it's in the tiniest details, the small miniscule signs. He sees a strong woman guarding her ground, unwilling to divulge information, even a little impatient by the toss of her golden head; but Elijah also sees how closely she hugs her dress to her, how she doesn't look him directly in the eye and he knows the way he'd known with so many characters over the centuries that Caroline Forbes is hiding something. He thinks it's the dress, why she has it, the nature of her relationship with his brother unsettles her, but he also thinks she's clever enough for it to be something else.

"It's almost midnight," She corrects coolly, but will not meet his eyes. He understands that the snappiness of her tone is meant to cover up a deeper nervousness, to dismiss him, but Elijah is so used to these sharp qualities in women he can't help but smile. Katerina would have scoffed at him, tossed her hair and left, swinging her hips in that way of hers that made all men mad. Caroline can't keep a hold on her own emotions, they flit across her eyes like fleeing sparrows, robin blue. Nonetheless, he won't get sidelined; he wonders why she's here, and he wants to know. "Well, good to see you and all, I've got a prom to head to."

_I've got a brother's rage to appease,_ he thinks, but he smiles small, light and spry and open for interpretation. "And what does Niklaus think of prom?"

She colors. He thinks the way he might have said the word has stirred in her some indignation, he reflects that he has sounded a little belittling, and that Caroline Forbes appreciates that even less. She tucks the dress closer to her chest, like she means to protect it from his inquiry with that alone.

"Maybe you should ask him," She snaps prissily, raising her chin, sharp and curt.

"Maybe I will," He nods, a tiny bow of the head, so used is he to making concessions it almost makes him laugh how easily the gesture comes. He knows how old fashioned he is, but Elijah can't for the life of him shake these mannerisms off. He's a man wrought from the intrigues of Catherine the Great's court and Cromwell's ledgers, he knows everything from kissing the palms of those who call themselves royalty, to the mazurka, to garroting a man without getting blood on his cuffs. He, is made of details, as well, small and clean, refined by the processed elegance of history. "Do take care, Miss Forbes. There's a millennium old mad man afoot who means my brother harm, be alert."

"I am," Caroline replies testily, she sees the insinuation. Elijah has yet to know the full nature of the relationship, and fleetingly thinks he's been away too long. He's asking her whether she belongs to his brother, and she does not enjoy the assumption. "Good night." She says, turning sharply on her heel and making her way to the door, her shoes clinking against the varnished wooden floorboards, cool and unhurried. Caroline Forbes is not fearless, but he thinks she might be very brave, to walk in and out of a beast's den so easily, there's something clever about her. So young and so fresh with promise, he thinks she has promise, and that his brother sees that in her, maybe. Klaus sees himself untarnished, the best of what he could have been in the fledgling baby vampire and her glossy yellow hair, and her uncompromising walk. So sure and aware of herself.

She almost jumps out of her skin when he's by her once more, hearing how her pulse leaps is mesmerizing; the air barely flutters as speed allows him by her side. He catches the whiff of honey and red red strawberries, her eyes are a wide, an astonishing blue and her lips part in a stuttered gasp that dies quickly when he reaches quietly past her to close a hand around the door knob. Elijah simply props the door open for her, and the night air floods in like an animal that had been pawing to get inside, rattling in a dark, cold breeze.

Caroline Forbes doesn't say anything, though she looks like she dearly wants to. The blonde slip of a girl who clearly means something to his brother escapes out the door quietly, deeply unsettled.

Even monsters know their manners.

"Good night." Elijah echoes too late, he realizes the words only after the door has been shut behind her. Caroline Forbes has distracted him and that is a dangerous thing indeed.

* * *

_._

_._

_._

_Some say you're trouble, boy, j__ust because you like to destroy._  
_ You are the word, the word is 'destroy'_  
_ I break this bottle and think of you fondly_;  
_ Did I see you in a limousine, flinging__ out the fish and the unleavened_  
_ to the whore in a hostel, o__r the scum of a scheme_, _turn the rich into wine?_  
_ Walk on the mean. __It's not a jag in the arm; __It's a nail in the beam o__n this barren Earth_.  
_ You scatter your seed, b__e they Magdalene or virgin_.  
_ You've already been. __Yeah, you've already been.  
__We've already seen t__hat the fallen are the virtuous among us_, w_alk among us_.  
_ If you judge us_  
_ We're all damned_

_._

.

* * *

**end notes: **i literally have no idea about my song choices anymore. okay, i tried. so tell me your thoughts. i've got about six or seven calijah interactions written down in the deepest, most secretive part of my laptop. don't get me wrong, i ship kalijah like _burning_, but the temptation of crack pairings are too strong to resist. idk, i've written elijah a few times before, but i need to know if he comes off as too OOC in this one, so if you could inform me that would be appreciated. i don't want him attracted to caroline straight away, i just want him to be curious, mildly intrigued and then we'll turn up the heat from there. it's really important for me to know what i'm doing wrong, so i can make it right, so, feedback anyone?


End file.
